Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an example of item tracking technology which provides for the detection of a presence, location, or movement of one or more items. For example, an individual item may be provided with an RFID tag which may automatically be detected by a corresponding RFID reader when the item and associated RFID tag are within a defined proximity of the RFID reader, where the proximity is defined based on a reading range of the RFID reader. RFID and similar item tracking technologies therefore generally provide a way to perform item tracking, potentially without requirement as to a positioning (within the reading range) or orientation of the item being tracked. Such RFID tracking techniques are therefore known to provide convenient item tracking in a wide variety of contexts, including, for example, inventory management within a retail or warehouse environment, tracking of patients and/or medicine/drugs within a hospital or other clinical environment, management of books and other media within a library or museum, and many other known uses.
Planograms generally refer to a plan or other specification of a layout or positioning of items within a predefined location or geographical area. For example, within a retail environment such as a grocery store, a number of aisles may exist within the grocery store, each aisle including a number of shelves. A planogram for a particular aisle may therefore specify placement of items of at least a first product type on a first shelf, and items of at least a second product type on a second shelf. Such planograms are known to be effective tools for increasing sales, managing inventory, and otherwise ensuring that desired items are correctly placed, in order, e.g., to optimize profits or other parameters. In practice, however, planograms may be difficult to enforce, because items may be misplaced by customers, employees, or other users. Further, planograms may be known to change rapidly in certain environments, such as when a grocery store or other retail environment updates planograms in response to seasonal changes.